Sharing these precious moments with Dolly, our high noon, felt transformative; silent watchers of an ancient, alien tradition by a modern man in ripped Levi’s. I sometimes felt that we were voyeurs, but there was nothing shameful or sleazy about it; it was deeply emotional in ways I couldn’t explain.

  By then, Dolly had pried out of me the fact that I also worked at the funeral home. I wasn’t supposed to tell any of the residents at Cedar Court in case they found it too upsetting, but Dolly was interested instead.

  “My dear, when my time comes, I want you to make me look simply fabulous. Send me off to the next great adventure looking my absolute best. I do think the pink streaks were rather flattering. Yes, with lips and nails to match. And you must take me shopping: I’ll need a new dress.”

  It distressed me to hear Dolly talking that way, but at 97, we both knew her clock was running down. And yet she was so full of life. I felt queasy at the thought that I’d be the one to take care of her for her final journey. I’d never had to do it for anyone I’d known.

  I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to take Dolly off the premises to go clothes shopping, but Dolly simply demanded it and I was finding it hard to say no.

  I did have other clients though, and my numbers were increasingly to a level that allowed me to start saving a little money each week. Bertha’s mechanic managed to keep her running and said he thought that she’d last another year, maybe two.

  But on days when I was less busy, I caught myself daydreaming, watching Joe Fox at a distance as he toiled in solitary silence, and I wished he’d turn around again so I could see his face, even though I could already pick him out of a crowd with a single glance.

  He worked stoically in all temperatures, unmoved by lashing rain or howling gales, but as the weather warmed, I more often saw him stripped to the waist, the sun glancing off his long, lean muscles, sweat gleaming on his bronze skin, his jet black hair held away from his eyes with that red bandana.

  Sometimes he stood, still as stone, staring toward the forested hills on the horizon, and I wondered what he was thinking. Then he’d bring a bottle of water to his lips and tilt his head backward. I was mesmerized by the droplets glinting in the sun as they flowed over his chin and down his muscled chest. Sometimes he emptied the bottle over his head, shaking his hair like a dog.

  “Enjoying the view, dear?” Dolly asked knowingly one day, snapping me out of my reverie.

  “The gardens are very beautiful this time of year,” I answered primly, throwing her a quick smile.

  She didn’t reply, but stared out of the window at the fresh green buds sprinkled across the shrubs.

  “Oh, I thought you were making eyes at Joe. My mistake.”

  Dolly saw everything with her quick, colorless gaze.

  “I don’t blame you, dear,” she said patting my arm kindly. “He’s a very attractive young man.”

  I shook my head with a small smile. “He’s not my type.”

  She gave an amused bark of laughter.

  “Oh, my dear! A man like that is every woman’s type.”

  “Dolly!” I said, pretending disapproval, although there was little Dolly could do to shock me more than she had at our first two meetings.

  I wasn’t the only one who watched. We’d all noticed him, of course, even the married female staff ogling openly, because God knows, he was a vision, a gift to all of us in this largely female workforce.

  I don’t know why the care-givers were mainly women—between my parents, my father was by far the kindest and gentlest.

  But here, Clive was the only male care-giver working inside the elegant whitewashed walls and jade-green grounds of Cedar Court; and there was also Geraldo the chef, who was a short, irascible Mexican in his late fifties.

  And, of course, Joe Fox.

  I tried to be discreet, I’m not sure why. Perhaps because there were several women far more attractive than me working there. I was a steady seven; maybe an eight when I lost a few pounds.

  But Joe Fox never noticed me.

  Chapter Seven

  London, 7th September 1940

  Sylvia

  On a beautiful autumn day in September, boredom drove me from home, tired of arguing with Father, and longing to hear from Harry.

  It seemed ridiculous to have been married for almost a whole year and be treated like a schoolgirl. But I still blushed when I thought about our wedding night.

  Harry had been sweet and gentle, but the intimacy hadn’t been very pleasant, rather painful in fact, and honestly, even though all my friends said that I’d become a woman, I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. I did like the cuddling part and waking up next to him. When I saw the state of the sheets the next morning, I was so terribly embarrassed. I insisted on whisking them off the bed immediately, even though Harry said the hotel’s chambermaid would do it.

  But now, my parents were insisting that I take up my place at Oxford. I’d poured out all my frustration and desire to support the war effort in a long letter to Harry, but when I’d finally received his reply, he’d agreed with my parents.

  Why didn’t anyone understand that I wanted, needed, to do something important like Harry? Surely a university education didn’t matter now—why couldn’t they see that? But nothing about this ghastly war made sense.

  I prayed for Harry every night and wrote every day, as I’d promised, fighting on my own private battleground, duelling with dread that gripped my heart, the fear that he would not come home.

  I hated the war. Hated it.

  At odds with my parents, at odds with myself, I decided to take the train into town, by which I mean London.

  Mother didn’t want me to go, saying it was too dangerous because several random bombs had been dropped in the suburbs by German planes returning from attacking airfields. But I’d heard a rumour from next door’s char lady that the John Lewis department store had received a supply of silk stockings, and I wanted to get there and buy some for Mother and me before they were all sold out.

  I scooped up my gasmask and slung it over my shoulder with my handbag.

  I glanced at the kitchen table where the newspaper lay crumpled. Father and I used to test ourselves with the Daily Telegraph’s cryptic crossword after lunch. It was the only time we ever spoke as equals. But today, Father had been busy as a volunteer officer with the newly formed Home Guard, so I’d completed the crossword by myself. It was supposed to be one of the Telegraph’s toughest ever, but I’d finished it in ten minutes whilst making a pot of tea, and Mother suggested that I send it in to the newspaper, just in case I won a ham or a round of cheese. What rot. Everyone knew that winning real prizes was just gossip and nonsense. It filled me with a sense of sadness, so I left the crossword where it lay.

  Sighing, I locked the front door behind me, ignoring the bright red post box engraved ‘VR’, Victoria Regina, for the late Queen, as I hurried to the station.

  One train and two Tube journeys later, I walked up the steps from the Underground station, relieved to see that the sun was still shining as I’d forgotten to bring an umbrella and it was autumn now. I moved briskly through crowds of shoppers, and was nearly at the large department store when a strange droning sound caught my attention and I glanced upward, shielding my eyes against the sun. Aeroplanes were flying overhead, so many that they darkened the sky as they flew. Oddly, I didn’t recognise them. All Brits knew the silhouette of a Bristol Blenheim, a Hawker Hurricane or a Spitfire whose wing-shape was said to be based on those of a seagull.

  I watched them cross the London sky, but then a dull boom echoed through the air, sending a flock of pigeons soaring skywards.

  My heart thudded, my stomach lurched. Another boom followed, and then the shrill alarm of the air-raid siren shrieked through the afternoon.

  What struck me later was that nobody screamed.

  Men, women and even children poured from shop doorways, hurrying to the nearest air raid shelter or Tube station, deep, deep underground where the bombs couldn’t hurt them.

  “It’s started,” said a grim-faced man hurrying past. “Mr. Churchill warned us! Better come this way, miss.”

  I hurried after the streams of people, fumbling into my gasmask as my heart beat a new rhythm: It’s started, it’s started, it’s started. Was I going to die for the sake of a pair of stockings? If I’d had any breath in my body, I would have laughed. Or cried.

  On that perfect autumn day, the first mass bombing of London began.

  For nearly two hours, hundreds of German bombers attacked the docks in the East End, and Mother told me that once darkness fell, the fires could be seen forty miles away, guiding a second wave of bombers that shook the city.

  I crouched on the floor of the Tube station, trying to join in with the hundreds of others who sang ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag’ to keep their spirits up. Fear turned to disgust as I queued to use one of the overflowing buckets that passed for a lavatory, trying not to breathe too deeply. The heat was terrific and the smell appalling. There was no fresh air, and nothing to eat or drink.

  It wasn’t until the following day that I climbed out of that terrible place, thirst roaring, to find the air was thick with smoke. Ragged holes had been blasted through buildings in Oxford Street making it look like a toothless hag. Fire engines fought through the rubble, and it seemed as if the whole world was on fire.

  I saw a woman who was completely white, like a ghost, covered in ash and dust. She was carrying a baby, but I could see that the baby was dead. It hung in her arms like a pile of laundry. Her face. I’ll never forget her face—the woman was alive but her eyes were empty.

  I’m ashamed to say that I simply watched as others ran to help her.

  The train lines at Waterloo had been damaged, and public telephones weren’t working so I couldn’t telephone home. I made my way home by bus, dirty, afraid but defiant; past heaps of sandbags that covered the important statues; across plies of plaster, brick and broken glass. When my parents saw me, Mother wept with relief.

  The first targets of bombing had been mostly military—the ports, airfields and factories. But now, the Germans had a new and frightening tactic—bombing civilians: London, Manchester, Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Plymouth, Swansea, Liverpool, and more—the cities were no longer safe as the war progressed. But that first day, the first day that civilians were the target, it became known as Black Saturday—the Blitz had started.

  Many of the children who’d been evacuated at the start of the Phoney War had already come back, homesick and missing their parents, schools and friends. Even the Royal evacuees, the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret had come home to Buckingham Palace, and everyone said if staying in the city was good enough for the Royal Family, it was good enough for them. The King and Queen stayed in London throughout the war, suffering with us.

  On 13th September, a bomb destroyed a small portion of Buckingham Palace. The Queen said that she could finally look the people of the East End in the face.

  Perhaps Hitler hoped to crush the morale of the British people. But when the daylight bombing raids didn’t drive us to surrender, Hitler began a series of nighttime attacks.

  The bombing continued for 57 nights without cease. Can you imagine what it was like? First the shrill cry of the air raid siren, the symphony of war, then the practised rush to the shelter, running with our shelter bags that contained a blanket, blackout torch, and flask of tea with sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. Searchlights crisscrossed the night sky, trying to find the enemy bombers, followed by the ragged cough of the ack-ack guns. We didn’t feel safe in our beds. We didn’t feel safe anywhere. People were too afraid to sleep in their homes, so crept like rats into cellars, bomb shelters and the earth itself. The air raid sirens were followed by a torrent of bombs pummelling the ground, and at daylight, we would return coughing into the dusty, scorched air.

  Over the next five years, 40,000 civilians would be killed in London alone, and a million homes destroyed in the nightly raids. The children had returned home at the start of the brutal bombing campaign that began without warning.

  I was a coward. I was too scared to continue with my plan of joining the WAAF, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Instead, I slunk away to Oxford, telling myself that I was making my parents happy. Harry said I was doing the right thing, and somehow that made it worse.

  Chapter Eight

  Strawberry Point, April 2019

  Fiona

  I’d been visiting Cedar Court twice a week for two months, the days slipping softly into spring, the temperatures steadily rising, and I still hadn’t exchanged a word with Joe Fox.

  Dolly had. In fact, they seemed to have developed a sort of lopsided friendship. I didn’t know when or how they’d first spoken, but when I admired a small, wooden figurine of a fox on Dolly’s dresser, she told me.

  “Joe made it,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone—I’m not supposed to encourage a young man to visit my rooms,” and she cackled softly.

  I smiled but felt a thread of concern at her words. To cover my unease, I picked up the figurine to inspect it, and Dolly smiled with pleasure.

  The figurine was tiny and intricate, no larger than my little finger.

  “Exquisite, isn’t it?”

  “It’s lovely. It was nice of him to make that for you.”

  The question why hung in my mind. I didn’t like to think of myself as a cynical person but life had taught me that not everyone was what they seemed, and I’d heard of older citizens being taken advantage of by immoral opportunists. I had no reason to think the worst of Joe. I had no reason to think the best of him either.

  I hoped that Dolly wasn’t modeling for him as well as Norman. That would just be … I refused to let my imagination go there.

  But the next week, I found something that was concerning.

  The days were warmer now and the central heating wasn’t needed during the day. So it wasn’t the open window in Dolly’s room that surprised me, but the fact that she was smoking a marijuana cigarette with obvious enjoyment.

  “Dolly!” I hissed, waving uselessly at the smoke-filled room with an old newspaper.

  She smiled, her eyes glinting. “Ah, there you are! I’m indulging in a little holiday from the world. Would you care to join me?”

  “No, I would not! And you shouldn’t either!” Then I saw the half-empty bottle of mescal next to her. “You’re smoking weed and drinking, as well?”

  “Don’t beat your gums, sister!” she grumbled out of the side of her mouth, channeling her inner Mae West with a rather corny accent. “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before,” and she gave that familiar rasping laugh.

  I snatched the cigarette out of her hand and flushed it down the toilet, then reached for the mescal.

  “Don’t!” Dolly said sharply, her tone changing immediately. “I tolerate you, Fiona, because you amuse me. But you are not, to use the vernacular, the boss of me.”

  My hand hovered over the bottle. “Alcohol doesn’t mix with your meds, Dolly,” I said pleadingly. “You don’t know what harm you’re doing to yourself.”

  Her gaze softened. “My dear, I’m 97. But,” she paused, glancing out the window to where Joe sat astride his tractor-mower in the distance, “perhaps you’re right. There is still work to be done.”

  She pushed the mescal away and seemed to wither in front of me. I clutched the bottle, then hid it at the very back of her tiny closet.

  “Just … be careful.”

  She smiled and closed her eyes. “Can’t be careful all your life, dear. What would be the point of living?”

  I cleaned out the saucer that she’d been using as an ashtray, and wafted the newspaper back and forwards energetically, trying to clear the smell of weed from her room as Dolly sat in her chair, dozing.

  I wanted to ask where she’d gotten the mescal and weed; I suspected Joe, but I could be wrong. I wanted to be wrong. I didn’t want him to be the kind of man who’d do this to an old lady for … what? A joke? Or did she pay him? No, it’s not him! Then who?

  “Not very much happens when you’re as old as me,” she said, blinking slowly. “You’re an also-ran, invisible. You don’t go dancing, you’re never asked out in the evening. But, I have enough life left in me for one more adventure.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked Dolly.

  “The picture is becoming clearer,” she said enigmatically.

  We chatted as I painted her nails—purple today—but as I was leaving she gave me an appraising look:

  “Don’t think badly of Joe. Don’t judge him.”

  My fingers tightened around the door handle and I wasn’t sure what to say. It seemed like an indirect admission of his guilt.

  “Did … did he give you that … stuff?” I whispered.

  Dolly simply smiled. “Until next week, my dear.”

  After my less than stellar start with Dolly, it was a difficult, draining afternoon.

  “Pearl is in the day room watching TV. She loves her shows,” said Tracy, as I headed for my next appointment.

  The day room was a large, slightly old fashioned sitting room with heavy furniture and a wide flat screen blasting out one of the soaps.

  Tracy led me to Pearl, who looked up in confusion.

  “Have you seen my husband?” she asked. “I don’t know why I’m here. I was looking for my daughter…”

  She trailed off, befuddlement turning to fear, and I caught a whiff of soiled incontinence pads.

  Tracy frowned, then smiled professionally. “Let’s get you comfortable first, Pearl. I spoke to your husband and he says he’ll visit you tomorrow.”

  She helped Pearl to stand using a walker and glanced at me briefly. “We’ll be a few minutes.”

  Then she followed Pearl’s slow progress to the bathroom.

  The other residents eyed me with the same blank curiosity of grazing cattle, then turned back to the TV. A shiver ran through me. I wouldn’t want this for myself—would anyone? We all think we’ll die suddenly in our beds, but this decline into infirmity and confusion was probably more likely with all the ways we’ve invented to keep a natural death at bay.